


Art Eludes Conventional Morality

by approaching_infinity



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Beat Generation, Alternate Universe - College/University, Drug Use, Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, M/M, More Pairings to Come - Freeform, More characters to come, Period-Typical Homophobia, Typewriter Porn, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 09:33:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1505495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/approaching_infinity/pseuds/approaching_infinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1943 and Jean finds himself wedged between the strict academic conventions of Trost University and the freedom of the budding Beat Generation. Just as his life begins to spiral out of control, he happens upon Marco, a seemingly straight laced man with horn rimmed glasses and a love for Jimmy Stuart. Will Marco help him find his moral compass or will Jean be swept away in a tide of Benzedrine, free verse, and promiscuity?</p><p>[Rated E for later chapters]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Art Eludes Conventional Morality

**Author's Note:**

> That summary is horseshit. I promise that this will be better than the "vague setting" +"characters" + "leading question" summary suggests.
> 
> I have fallen in love with the underground/youth movements of the 1940's, so prepare for weird references to period appropriate things. This is my first fic and I have yet to have it beta'd, but I really needed to just birth this thing! I hope it's somewhat enjoyable~

* * *

 

He always found beauty in the seventy-two clicks and clacks per line, the shrill cry of the bell, and the sense of accomplishment he felt when he tugged on the carriage return lever, hearing it click all the way along its track until it fell into place to sit there waiting for seventy-two more characters to be struck upon it. There’s a certain violent honesty in how each type bar strikes the page, and that suited him. Not to imply he is a violent person. No not indeed. Jean Kirschtein, while cynical and maybe a _tad_ bit unpleasant at times, wasn’t violent. Not like that absolute buffoon down the hall.

Jean would like to say he had yet to catch the young man’s name, to say that he had no idea that the boy with the house key around his neck even existed, but a little yellow canary with impossibly big blue eyes let out a worried warble as the idiot tried to stack their beds as they moved in.

“E-eren what are you doing!?” The dry scrape of furniture on the wood floor could be heard, followed by a scuffle. “Put that down you fat-head! You’ll flail in your sleep and the whole bed will fall and crush me!”

Eren. Eren Jeager. Compared to him Jean was the epitome of calm. Unless the angry brunet was in his vicinity… then things tended to get heated, no matter how they both tried to behave.

–––

It’s been over a semester since then though. He and the rest of his classmates had sat through the 104th matriculation with all its pomp and glory. Old men telling young men about the old and dusty rooms where they were going to be able to see the world through rote memorization of formulas.

Honestly Jean probably wouldn’t be here if he had any other choice, but if he didn’t currently have a desk at Trost with his typewriter, he most certainly would be running for his life in Italy, Carbine in tow. He might find violence in honesty with all its blunt appeal, but there is no honesty in violence, or at least in the war kind anyway. He applied for college as soon as he could, anxious to make sure he didn’t have to exchange the late night clicks and clacks for rat-a-tat-tats.

The literature of college suited him. Actually zoot suited might be a better way to describe it. He didn’t really like the meter and rhyme, the monotony, the restrictions, but he kept his mouth shut and loosely existed within the bounds. His fingers though, they spiraled, tumbled and crashed through sleepless nights and then later on, after meeting these crazy people his life revolves around, (who were and still _are_ both steadfast and yet ever-changing, like ancient contained elementals, volatile within their mediums,) through flying drunken hazes. 

Things were on the verge of getting out of hand; having an intellectual renaissance with all the substances it entailed while not outwardly engaging in any behavior that would be “unbecoming of a Trost student” (the old man with angular face and ratty goatee had made sure the boys at the 104th convocation read their handbooks,) was quite a chore.

On one particularly stressful evening at the library, as he was trying to write a six page analysis of some abominable sonnet, he met him.

Met might be a bad word, but he was trying to get out of the habit of always having to have the right words. Reiner always told him to lose his filter while Connie pushed liquids and vapors his way to help loosen up the screws that held it in place.

Met or not, as Jean was about to pull every last sun-bleached strand of hair out of the top of his head, _he_ walked up with a stack of books and plunked them across the table.

A freckled hand reached up to absentmindedly push his bangs back onto his otherwise perfectly kept hair. Jean smelled the Brylcreem before he actually leaned back to look at the other boy’s face. Sure enough, his hair was slicked into one of those Cary Grant parts. The brown eyes of the man remained unfixed and unfocused as he pulled out a journal and arranged his tower of books into a low-lying fort.

Honestly, why did he have so many books?

Jean felt a little self-conscious with only his one thin text and typewriter. Not to mention his hair could most definitely use a brush. When he’s writing he tends to let things slide. Sometimes these sliding things gained so much momentum that even Hanji, the landlord at Reiner’s place, would throw a brush at him. This pinnacle of aesthetic presentation in front of him probably never had this issue. Jean watched as the dark haired stranger pulled a pair of horned rimmed glasses out of his breast pocket.

Jesus Mary and Joseph morality and uprightness just poured off of this kid.

 Jean, giving up on finishing his paper, watched Mr. Book Fort work. The strokes of his pencil on the paper were smooth, yet precise. After each exercise he would draw a line on the page and write the next number. Every column was neat and tidy, but not in that tight-assed kind of way. Order just seemed to happen around the guy without him having to even try… except when it came to those damned bangs and horn rimmed glasses.

After seeing him try to brush his hair back into place for the third time, Jean cracked a smile.

Every time he pushed his bangs back into his pomaded hair, it would cause his glasses to begin to slip down his nose. Jean began to measure their decent in freckles and noticed that a pattern arose:

The glasses would start in their normal position, and then the Moral Orel would brush his hair off of his forehead. This would cause them to slip down to the large freckle at the bottom of his nasal bone. After this they would continue their journey onward until they stopped just a bit further down, where a splash of lighter freckles dusted just above the upturn of his nose. He would then push them back up, but, _oh no_ , that was _not_ the end of it. This would cause those same hairs to become dislodged from their hair product prison, and the process would begin again.

After the fourth cycle the stranger let out a displeased sigh and sat up, catching Jean’s staring eyes and smile.

...

…Awkward.

...

Both boys hesitated, and by some miracle Jean spoke without making a fool of himself. Firsts were generally _not_ his forte. Making it to the speaking part without some clumsy embarrassment was always a victory in his mind.

“You uh, seem to be having some difficulties there, Cary Grant.” Aaannnd he most definitely called that one too soon. Shit. Maybe he could convince Connie to return some of his screws.

A short chuckle pulled him out of his panic, “Haha yeah I need to get these glasses refitted. When they fall so low down on my nose I end up looking like an old man.”

 “Well it seems like you’re certainly aging better than Pixis.” The freckled man and Jean both let out a few laughs that died into silence.

 

Yes. 

This was it.

This was what he was used to.

Strained smiles and not knowing what to say.

 

Without waiting another moment for the obligatory stinted polite conversation to begin, Jean hastily shoved his thin paperback into his pocket and scooped up his typewriter and papers. The “See ya’ round” he offered quasi Cary Grant was rough at best. Dear lord he hoped he would never have to talk to him again. If firsts were bad, seconds after failed firsts were even worse. He only slowed down his pace when he was outside his bedroom door.

 –––

That had been at the end of October. Jean now knows many things about the man with the horn rimmed glasses. His favorite film is Suspicion. His favorite actor isn’t Cary Grant, it’s actually Jimmy Stuart, and after getting to know him Jean sees that it fits perfectly. He was going to enlist, but his little sister begged him not to, and he can’t say no to her.

Neither can Jean… the little rascal knows how to milk the innocent sister act.

He’s worried that he’s going to lose himself at Trost. He has a spiral of freckles on the back of his neck that Jean doubts even _he_ knows about. When he sighs the air in his chest stills, as if taking a moment to appreciate it’s own vibrations. He is just starting to get comfortable writing outside of the meters and rhymes.

His name is Marco Bodt and he’s Jeans friend, companion, confidant, brother… it’s been six months and Jean still clings to having the right words, but in this case he doesn’t think there are any. Marco is Marco, and Jean is Jean. Together the two make a unit, a they, or in their words, no matter how imperfect they may be, an us.

 

The us is tripping him up.

 

Connie, Reiner, and Ymir may all think that straight lines have no value, but having borders makes things neat. A stark neatness compared to Marco’s natural order, but still. Boundaries make things clear. There is false comfort in their rationality. Over the past few months things have blurred for Jean, and he just wants to be able to wipe the fog off of the glass. Jesus Christ is that such a hard thing to ask for? Clarity? Perspective?

“Fuck it.” The harsh consonants rattle around his dorm room. The bed, desk, bookshelf and chair do little to soften the words’ hard edges.

Jean stares out at the snow scape that is Trost.  It’s the tail end of January and he has to be careful not to hit the keys too hard. The cold makes the type bars brittle and he doesn’t have the money for replacements.

 •••• 

[January 22, 1944]

_There are things I know._

_Things that have that solid thump of nice oak when things come knocking from the corners of my mind. Dark corners that I run away from as fast as I can while the sun’s still high and the oil still burns._

_These truths I have, stories, sights, tastes so real that the mere recollection tears me out of my linear existence like some strange drug induced haze… when the flames go out they chase away those inhabitants of the deep chasms._

_These pinpoints of blazing light are like breath holes. Maybe I’m just some tiny insect in a dark box and some giant being has poked little holes in it to let me breathe and get a glimmer of hope. Hope that I can move forward. Hope I can work through myself._

_Through me and you._

_No… no that’s too depressing to think about. If these thoughts and truths are pinpricks of happiness in a sea of darkness, then that means that I’m being rationed._

_This darkness is more something self-imposed. This light isn’t guiding me along. These holes aren’t letting in air. I’m in a pinhole camera looking at a solar eclipse. Your sun of gentle laughs, knowing looks, and hands on shoulders when I needed it most would blind me._

_My titan keeper has dropped me in a lake and these holes in my dark cage are letting the water in… the more there are, the faster I’ll drown.  I don’t really know what to do. I know I’m seeking solace behind metaphors, but I am still unsure what I am seeking solace from._

_••••_

The sound of typing fades away. He doesn’t even know what he is saying anymore. The words seem sullied. What was supposed to relax him and get him away from thoughts of morality and drowning in the unspoken has just left him even more frustrated. He leaves the machine out and pulls on his coat, tapping his pocket to makes sure his cigarettes were still there. He needed to clear his head. He was just itching to pull Marco out of bed and…

 …and what? He isn’t drunk or high. He doesn’t have an excuse for… for anything. Marco’s a nice and sometimes oblivious guy so he overlooks things, which is probably a good thing for Jean.

Jean wipes his face with his hands and stepped out into the icy air, making his way to a lone bench that overlooks this part of campus. He sits down on the pine boards and strikes his match, cupping his hand around the flame to protect it from the wind.

He wants to have a large introspective showdown with himself, but he knows it’s all for show. From the first goddamned second he saw those glasses slipping down that ever so slightly upturned nose he had an inkling something was amiss. From then on he was off kilter, but he brushed it off, thinking it was the drugs.

Now, alone in the cold, he is terrified.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! ConCrit would be supremely helpful as my non academic writing is a lil wonky.
> 
> There will be chapters from both Jean and Marco's perspectives, with their little freewriting blurbs included. I am so excited to write in Marco's style. He's a bit less Ginsberg than Jean.
> 
> My update schedule will be once every two weeks and once I get through finals chapters will most definitely be longer. (I'll probably update sooner though because damn I love procrastinating.)
> 
> You can reach me at approaching-infinity on tumblr and I'll be tracking fic: aecm


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